The Breach Reopens

[Mako]

This thread is for me to keep a campaign summary going, because hopefully it will be interesting to see how it unfolds. I’m new to the whole GM thing, but after the usual confusion and faint dread, I actually realised there was only really one tricky thing about FMing for Through the Breach – the destiny steps themselves. Coming up with a vaguely coherent story to tie 20 cryptic prophesies together at least in part was a bit of a daunting task.

The players were Anna Bywaters (Bowchikawowers), Felix Boon (Edonil), Illinois Ford (Mister Monkey) and Roger Just (Webmonkey). I know Anna and Felix are keeping journals of it on here too:

 

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/100689-forging-fated-anna-bywater/

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/100530-forging-a-fated-felix-boon/

 

The campaign was set up to be vaguely focussed on action, not politics, and based in the immediate aftermath of the breach reopening. That meant no human settlement in Malifaux, and no access to magic or soulstones at character creation. I’d agreed to give them 5 scrip extra each so that one of the characters would be able to have a whip (because I couldn’t resist having a whip wielding academic adventurer on the team), which also frankly made sense given they were joining an expedition into presumably hostile territory and wouldn’t be going in with nothing.

 

A few days before the session, I sent them this letter, approving their application to join the expedition:

 

 

The first week would be a mix of intro and a bit of exploration, where the team would meet a few of the key people kicking about in the expedition and get them in place for future weeks. I also chose to focus on Felix Boon’s first destiny, as you will be unmourned by the father.

 

The initial muster was a narrative intro and a slow ish start while I tried to get my brain around what I was trying to do. There were a few entertaining moments, like when they didn’t really get their papers checked by the gate guard and were worried it was too easy… until they rounded the corner and found the platoon of 30 guardsmen that formed the bulk of the convoy. They also saw a few huddled, ragged people with manacle scars on their wrists, and several people bustling about and shouting. Mostly a man with captain’s tags, who was giving confident but not very efficient orders and generally slowing the whole process up by getting involved. Mostly, it was a cold, dingy, slushy affair that was fairly chaotic and dreary.

 

They did eventually get their paperwork checked by a young Corporal, who in a (dubious) Welsh accent confirmed they’d be on their way soon. He was responsible for archives, admin and various other things. The other Corporal, Brigham, was a very loud and obnoxious man with sandy blonde hair and a goatee, looking vaguely like an angry military Colonel Sanders. He was the catalyst for the prisoners loading the carts up with the kit, and the column moving out (vaguely messily at first as he was shouting abuse rather than proper orders, but they did move quick when he shouted). He also never took his hand away from his pistol, keeping his jacket open despite the cold.

 

The march up to the Breach was only interrupted briefly, when two of the prisoners tried to make a run for it despite the guards. Corporal Brigham shot both of them without really paying much mind, then asked the team if they had any last words before walking through the Breach.

 

After a few moments of unpleasant and vaguely painful disorientation, they were dumped on Malifaux and the column moved on. They marched past a large tree with a corpse still hanging on it, which brought Eldon Reede (and his ‘Investigating Boys’)to their attention. He had a good time telling them vague, creepy stories about how he’d heard stories about the hanging man being there for 100 years, and walking the earth after dark. Mostly he was being a bit sensationalist, and claiming to have heard many stories, even the ones no one ever told (yes, he genuinely said that). Once he got bored of trying to spook the team with tales of being the second wave of mercenaries after the first was slaughtered, and all sorts of things, he did mention they probably wanted to avoid one of the other merc groups. Led by Katarin Czoren, that group consisted of ruthless ex-military people with very little social skills and even less patience. She was colloquially known as White Kat, but one of Eldon’s teammates had gotten a broken nose by saying it to her face a few years back.

 

The march took them away from the hanging tree, out of sight of it to the East, and to an encampment with signs of recent damage and battles despite the total lack of wildlife. Here they met the Captain, who told them in vague terms how things worked, along with indicating them to a map of the areas of the city that have been re-mapped. This had pins in it for the teams, along with some red flags indicating the locations of recent attacks:

 

 

The tightly packed streets known as the slums were suggested as a bad idea (and coincidentally had White Kat’s team in there), and the red flag in the forest put the team off wandering about in there. They were then told that they may as well go wander in the safer streets to the west of the wall break that the expedition was working from, where the larger buildings were. The plan was eventually to map, clear and take that area to give a more solid base of operations than the encampment.

 

On their way into the city, they bumped into five men walking out. Two of them were out of uniform, but had guild pins on their coats. The younger one, Woodhouse, introduced himself, and was quickly shut up by the more senior one. This one was Kelsey, who told them they should avoid anything that looked too magical, and call him in so his pet dog (he really wasn’t very nice about Woodhouse) could check it out. Woodhouse was the only approved mage they’d seen so far, and he was being treated half like a pet and half like a chore by his handler and guards.

 

The fifth man was Sergeant Johann Linnell, who was really the person keeping the expedition functioning despite his Captain’s well intentioned interference. After telling them about the disaster in the forest two weeks ago, and another attack in the slums (one man was still in the medical tent from that one, but they found his leg last week), he left them to wander.

 

They elected not to go into the slums, and wandered off into the streets. They very quickly (I had to accelerate the exploration bit quite a lot) found a strangely undamaged building that had been used as a makeshift church. Illinois (the team’s historian) recognised it as a minor religion from the original colonists, and decided they should check it out (can always rely on academics to decide to poke the eldritch thing…). When they walked in, seeing a wooden pulpit and pews still in there, a disembodied voice started mocking the humans for returning after so long. They accused it of being part of what had killed the humans off, at which point it coalesced into an old, dead and very cranky priest at the pulpit. He was distinctly angry over being left to die, and after walking through the pulpit to get close to the team, when he smelled the stink of the law on Felix he blamed him for pretty much everything. After some tense words, where Felix tried to convince the angry dead preacher he wasn’t a git like the original guards, something big started moving about on the roof and the preacher told them he wouldn’t weep over their deaths. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying it as a massive creature crashed through the ceiling into the church.

 

This was a combination of a very large, steroid pumped lion and a crocodile. Big claws, teeth, and scales covering the upper parts of its head and body. The preacher mocked them, because it would enjoy their warmth but since he was already cold he was safe enough.

 

[Combat Note: I wasn’t giving exact numbers for the party to reach, but I would indicate how close or over the target they were with the in game effect. I designed this creature using the Rogue Necromancy as a base, dropping its claws to 2/4/5 and switching hard to wound for incorporeal since it was a spectre. I also made sure it took it’s turn after all the party, as I didn’t entirely know how well it would work and didn’t want to cripple anyone by accident, which meant dropping its speed a bit]

 

The creature was about 15 yards away, which put the team too far for melee initially but allowed Anna to unlimber her rifle and take a shot at it. Her first shot (after cheating up the total) hits it in the shoulder and really annoys it, but doesn’t seem to do much otherwise so she backs up for more space (something the preacher crows at). Roger moved up a bit to keep himself as a good target, then Imposed it, scoring pretty high (and putting it at :-fate to hit anyone else). Illinois gets a good history flip and realises the religion is one based around fire/life and cold/death. The creature they’ve just been annoying is this religion’s version of the reaper, tearing the warm living into the cold afterlife, just like it did to the entire congregation here. His suggestion that they leg it gets outvoted (winning the grudging approval of the crank old preacher), but Illinois can’t get close enough to do anything other than ready his whip. Felix double focuses in the hope of seeing a good opening in the scales to take advantage of. The creature lunges in with eerie silence, smashing pews aside, and slashes at Roger, giving him a couple of wounds but not getting its claws properly into him.

 

At this point, I’ve used the range I set up to prevent a round one kill, so round two begins with the reaper in melee with Roger, close to the other two men, and with Anna focusing and shooting at it again (curse that non-randomising talent!), doing some more damage. When she hits it, the reaper explodes into black smoke and dissipates. There’s a brief moment of relief, ruined by the preacher laughing at them. He tells them they tried to kill it 100 years ago, and couldn’t do better than fend it off for a bit. They even brought fire against it and it did nothing. Before he can say anything else, the smoke coalesces back together off to the right, the creature reforming and screaming at them. Roger takes the chance to give it a tap with his hammer, but despite swinging twice the hammer just passes through the beast, leaving swirls of smoke and not actually causing any problems for it. Illinois manages to catch its leg in his whip, but it yanks free and bites at the whip. Felix takes his chance while it’s distracted, thundering in with his axe (double focussed of course). He takes a mighty swing, slams the axe into the reaper’s heavy scales, and bounces off [He flipped Ace, 2, BJ. How bad is that…]. His second swing gets between two scales, digs into the meat of the shoulder, and leaves the reaper limping a bit. In response it vomits forth a cloud of oily black smoke at Felix, who barely dives aside in time, and claws at Roger again though its injured leg throws off the strike.

 

Convinced by their efforts to actually stand up for what should be done, the preacher and his spectra l congregation interpose themselves between the reaper and the party. It backs up a little, unable to get through the spirits and wary of the wall they’re forming. Anna aims and shoots again, this time a perfect shot to the eye, causing black smoke to fountain from the ruined socket. The reaper screams again, lunges at the ghost wall, it’s paws bouncing off, then tumbles sideways and explodes into smoke again. No one is entirely sure it’s going to stay gone, but the preacher reckons they have some time before it returns.

 

In gratefulness for Felix proving that humans may still have redeeming qualities, the preacher offers him a choice. Behind the pulpit there is a crude two faced statue, hands outstretched. One is heat, and one cold, he tells Felix. When the get closer, there’s a soulstone in the palm of each hand. One flickers deep red, and one is coated in a thin layer of frost. Felix chooses ice, and grips the relevant hand. At this point, he feels like his hand is burning, and it spreads up his arm, his neck, and swells around his eyes. He gets to see that life and death is a balance of fire and ice, and (hopefully) realises that fire wouldn’t work on the reaper as it feeds on the heat of life. Without the ice stone in place, the fire stone fractures and burns the statue to ash. The preacher tells him that everyone chooses death eventually, but Felix replies that he’s had it as a companion for years.

 

When they go to leave, Felix has a vaguely numb hand with a blue-purple scar in the palm, and everything he touches frosts over. This mostly passes by the time they get back to camp, though the scar is still fairly vivid. On their way back in, they see four figures ahead of them in heavy coats and hats, armed with older model shotguns and looking like they’d waded through darkish blood. The leader has a cascade of white hair coming out of her hat to her mid back. They decide to not go introduce themselves…

 

Corporal Jones asks a few questions when they get back, but the team only admit that there was an old church that probably should be left alone and didn’t have anything valuable. The deception works on Jones, but Felix sees the mage Woodhouse watching him from a distance with vaguely friendly amusement before wandering away

 

So this session had a lot more railroading in it that I’d originally planned, but by the time we got going I had to shorten it a little so that just sort of happened. Next session will be less controlled. They still got the choice of what would happen depending on what they did – they could have ended up fighting the preacher and his spirits, the reaper, both, or run off. Each one would have had a different end result for Felix; the way he did it granted him hedge magic (and a grimoire with Elemental Strike, Elemental weapon that he has access to if he focuses on the ice shard in his hand, and the Ice immuto always available), but he could have learned some things about fighting spirits, or whatever else I thought fitted the moment.

Picking three options for the party members to improve was tricky too in some ways, but opening it up as a discussion made it much easier and more involving for everyone. I also granted an extra XP to everyone as they’d managed to not only do some brilliant roleplay (Anna talking in her Irish accent all the way through especially… Corporal Jones only got short scenes because I couldn’t keep the Welsh accent going for long!), but had a good opening brawl with something that could well become a long running pain in their necks.

 

All in all, I was pretty happy with how it went, hopefully the party were too. Some improvements I intend to make, of course.

I now have a magic user in the campaign, and there’s a lot of stuff going on that they don’t know about yet, so I have a lot of space to work in. Next session is in a couple of weeks, and I’ll most likely be writing that up too in this thread. 

 

Plot summary:

-Crossed the breach, met other mercs, expedition command, and  a guild special unit with mage

-Found spirit preacher, fought and drove off the reaper

-Felix learned basic ice magic

 

 

.

[bowchikawowers]

It was a ton of fun, Mako! Also, that Irish accent was a lot easier to keep up if I was able to think with it too, I dunno if that'll help you with your Welsh one or not. 

[Mako]

Heh, I'll have to try it. So long as everyone else doesn't start turning Welsh too it should work!

[bowchikawowers]

Lol The Welsh are taking over!

[rancor709]

sounds like an excellent first session.

[Mako]

Cheers Rancor, it was pretty good fun (for me, and it seems for the players too)!

 

From the chat we had after the session, I managed to use drama and description to make what was a relatively safe monster to face (capable of doing damage, but deliberately set up to be unlikely to critical the players) feel more risky. That was one of the big things I was aiming for, as it means I'm able to use the narrative to control the difficulty rather than having to perfectly balance a combat and all of us sitting about listing stats and flips like it was the tabletop game. I really wanted to keep the combat away from mechanics to maintain the story feel, and being new to the whole FM thing wasn't sure how well I'd do, so I'm pretty pleased with that!

 

Now all I have to do is come up with more fate ideas. Oh, and update the map, and fill out my notes on the various characters so I don't get my shenanigans confused...

[rancor709]

That's Huge, creating the sense of danger is much more important than actually having the party in mortal danger. You want to make them feel like its a life or death fight, but mechanically you don't want to hurt the party this early in the adventuring.  I think the system really lends itself more to narrative style combat than pure stat crunch. 

[Mako]

It really does work well that way, the narrative combat thing was so much more interesting to run. They could do things like try to hit it with a low skill attack and really get into character, rather than just going for the most efficient combat process mechanically.

 

Plus, their expressions when they dropped it, only to have it reappear, then have to drop it again... I had to try not to giggle at that point.

 

Originally the reaper was only going to be a one off, but it was so entertaining it got elevated to recurring problem. Plus Anna's player did some awesome art for it that's in her thread. Course, next time it might have fed more recently and be a bit tougher 

 

I get the impression I'll be learning a ton of stuff about running the system right through the campaign, all the way up to the end game. Which I haven't planned, because honestly this lot could probably end up running the guild, or toppling the whole power structure. I'm not going to stop them if they can come up with a plan for it!

[bowchikawowers]

oooh running the guild...? There's a thought! 

 

Glad you like the drawing, Mako.  

 

Also, you did laugh the first time we dropped it. scared the bejebes out of me. You're really good at the creepy thing. You must practice that evil laugh. 

[Mako]

I do like my creepy weirdo characters, lol.

 

Honest, it was the preacher laughing evilly. I'm a delicate flower and would never do sadistic stuff like that

[bowchikawowers]

Suuuure you wouldn't. Lol

Your creepy weirdo characters are quite memorable. Also oddly enjoyable.

[TehMik]

Love the write up! May be borrowing a few ideas for my TTB campaign. I hope to be reading more of thee fantastic summaries in the future.

[Scott]

Was really enjoying this, was curious if you guys have played another session yet?! I loved the write ups!

[Mako]

Just finished one tonight actually (our party is insanely busy, so it's been a while...)

 

I suspect writeups will appear soon, though it was a relatively short session for various reasons. I know I'll be trying to get mine done over the weekend.

 

If I'm lucky, I reached a new peak of creepy things to have them deal with

[bowchikawowers]

I don't know about the things reaching a new peak of creepy, but you certainly did. *shudder* I'm going to have nightmares tonight. 

 

On the other hand, I like them not attacking us on sight in the future... hopefully. 

[EntrepeNinja]

I want them books! I can't wait to get my hands on these suckers... I didn't have money when the Kickstarter was up. ;_;

 

Have they thought about offering a pre-order/early digital copy package at this point?

 

ENinja

[Scott]

Mako that's fantastic! I quite enjoyed reading things so far, with my job i'm away for work for 2-3 weeks then home for 1-3 so it's really tough to play an rpg. I'm lucky to get a night or two of malifaux a month. But I'm living vicariously through you

[bowchikawowers]

That's kind if what we do. This was our second game in a month lol

[Mako]

Hah, yeah. We have a bunch of people that are specially gifted at being busy on different weeks!

 

Next session will be a while away too...

[bowchikawowers]

Sadly, yes. :/

[Mister Monkey]

Sorry..... my bad.

[bowchikawowers]

It's not just you, Monkey. I have drill on the weekend you come back from your cruise so we can't play then either. 

 

Team effort! 

[Mako]

Can't complain at my victims players for having lives! lol

[bowchikawowers]

I don't think drill qualifies as "having a life".... 

[Mako]

So, second session. This was going to be a long one, but due to the party (and me) being in no real state for that (and Roger’s player not being available), it ended up shorter and will conclude next time. This week, I was working on Anna’s fate “As your power begets your heresy”. I spent a while pondering what would go on, but here’s what ended up happening:

 

After the excitement of managing to get some spectral reaper beast on their tails, the party at least got a vaguely restful night until just before dawn. At that point they got woken up by a shrill whistle that was rapidly joined by others, sending the alarm across the camp. Displaying a level of awareness that even I can beat first thing in the morning, Anna leapt up and ran outside. Felix grabbed his axe and ran outside, while Illinois remembered his whip and his hat. Anna then wisely decided to nip back in for some more appropriate clothing and her rifle…

 

With that little shenanigan out the way, they headed off to the western edge of the camp to find a field of terror tots, just about visible in the pre-dawn light. As the only ranged party member, Anna made her presence felt with a few good shots, but there was no way to stop the swarm before it hit the barricades. They piled over and bit some poor sod’s throat out, along with a few other guards and mercs. In the end, there were two young and about 5 tots facing the three man party.

 

Illinois focussed on the tots, uncoiling his whip ready. Anna shot the nearest young twice, first shooting it through the shoulder and tearing its wing mostly away, the second hitting it right in the chest and dropping it. Felix charged the second young, hitting it in the head once, then embedded his axe in its skull properly and killed it. At which point he discovered the joys of black blood. Two of the tots charge Felix but he dodges aside, another charges Illinois, trips over its own feet and falls flat on its face in front of him (seriously, I flipped that high for his dodge…)

 

Illinois promptly whipped the tot around the ankles, doing very little damage but tangling it up good, and then knocked it out with a punch to the face. Anna shot another tot, taking it out of action (on the red joker, though I had it crawling away pitifully rather than stone dead), then shot one more and completely missed (with the black joker). Felix goes for another tot and beats it pretty badly, before Sergant Linnell turns up, draws his sword (very plain and austere, but damn sharp), skewered one tot and took the unconscious one away for Woodhouse the mage to ‘study’. He also complained that they never attack when the Russian team are about, which was annoying as they’d make the defence a whole lot easier.

 

[Note: I actually used up most of the deck in this fight, which was quite impressive. They also cheated in several cards, so I drained their hands and the deck while only causing one wound with a bunch of utterly harmless enemies. I also didn’t have all the tots die, but took some of them out of action in more interesting ways, making them mewl piteously and try to crawl away and such]

 

After they’d had breakfast, I gave the party a choice - they could go play in the woods, since they’d just had a bunch of their more aggressive inhabitants killed. They could go mooch about the city, clearing buildings and investigating an artefact (though they were told the mage was typically the one to deal with those). They could go investigate a report of something being seen further into the city (possibly a creature, but not identified). They could even go a wandering about the badlands or towards the bayou if they liked. They picked artefact hunting, Illinois’ specialty. The situation would have changed depending on what they picked, but I hadn’t figured out how to deal with it if they picked badlands so that was good. The map they got is below, with the little flag for today's attack that Sergeant Linnell put up as they were looking:

 

 

Onwards into the city they went, and it started to drizzle (no real reason, it just made a happy little walk a bit less pleasant), After a short bit they got to the T junction where the flag was, and realised they had no idea what they were looking for, or where it was. Next time, they could probably benefit from asking the Sergeant, or the Archivist (who was in his tent, if they’d gone looking…). Luckily, Illinois is a dab hand at malifaux history, so he could identify a museum (complete with underground storage), the central archive building, and a theatre of some sort. Funnily enough, they picked the museum.

 

The museum was pretty wrecked, but as they wandered into the first big hall Anna saw movement on the balcony that stretched down the left hand side of the hall. Initially she was going to go look while the others stayed down to poke the artefacts, some of which were strangely untouched. I quite wanted this, splitting her off would have meant fun and games for the other two while she tried to negotiate their way out of it. They eventually decided, after she saw it again in the next hall, they’d all go look (curses! The one time a party doesn’t split…).

 

On the balcony they found a dishevelled man who seemed upset and scared that they were there. He didn’t seem to remember how to speak, but when they tried to speak with him he ran. A loud crash brought them after him to find they needed to pull him up from the balcony. Anna couldn’t quite lift him (strength check was pretty close), so Illinois helped out. Helped may not be the word though, as he tore the guys hand and arm off, to discover it was empty skin that had been over inky black glossy muscles. In order to not get an axe in the face rather quickly, it jumped 25 feet across the hall to another balcony and perched there, peeling the skin off its head to reveal an inky black muscled face with very few features (kind of like Gollum’s face wrapped in cling film, but made of wet black muscle).

 

It then started hissing, giggling and generally being cryptic as anything (which was both very easy, as I could just make stuff up, and quite tricky, as actually guiding a conversation when you can only talk in oblique riddles is hard work). It recognised Anna, as it had seen her documents, as well as another person named Bywater. That stopped her cold – I knew there wasn’t a member of her family she’d be keen to see, and depending on who it was, it could be horrendous. They clearly had eyes in the camp already, which left the party wondering who it could be (nothing like wondering who’s not human to make mealtimes fun).

 

The skinwalker seemed pretty keen to take her name (and her skin), and while they argued more drifted in to hang about the party ominously. They hung back out of range, especially when Felix enchanted his axe with ice; I was going to make the party take the first shot, rather than force combat on them.

 

I was trying to have them provoke and unnerve the party until violence broke out, and when that wasn’t working to liven it up I dropped two or three notice checks to spot some dropping from the rafters. If they’d not seen it coming it would have been potentially deadly, these things were fragile but immensely fast and could leave a nasty slice where they tried to open you up down the back of the head. Wouldn’t you know, they spotted every one in time to foil the sneaking (Even though they needed somewhere over a ten each time). The closest it got was when one grabbed Illinois with an arm around his neck and said it would take his ‘name’. He offered to give it some brass knuckles instead, which put it off a bit so it scampered about in front of them trying to torment them.

 

The net result was Anna making a very vague deal to help out the skinwalker pack (who were ok with humans as a concept, but really wanted the guild gone) in return for information, possibly including information about the other Bywater. The cryptic, creepy little sods then tried to make a clever getaway, the lead one lunging across the balcony towards the party and casting Sleep on them all. Once again, they ace their checks and the poor skinwalkers sit there for a second looking surprised and confused before scattering like cockroaches. Their last parting gift was a suggestion that ‘the key is in the theatre’.

 

That’s where we called it, if we’d been at full strength and all awake they’d have crossed the street and gotten up to all sorts there no doubt, but that’s for next time.

 

I got to drop some big plot hooks, and there were sneaky hints (if they noticed them) of what’s to come aside from the ‘other Bywater’ and the Russians never being about when the nephilim attacked. This session ended up very RP and conversation heavy, despite me giving it a good shove or two to see if it toppled. I was a bit worried by that at points during the session, but from what’s been said it seems to have worked – possibly cos my skinwalkers are so cuddly adorable (or just fascinating because they could be anyone and they make Gollum look like a straight talker)

 

I think my favourite bit of the whole thing was Anna’s player’s face at the point she said “I’m not sure what I did with my fate”, before realising she’d made a deal with a malevolent species to betray the Guild for information about someone with her surname. She did however get access to a spy network, albeit a dubious one with vague motives and a tendency to say things even an oracle would think were confusing.

What she didn’t get told was that if they’d shot the creepy little thing, hacked their way out past the others and reported it, there’d have been a bit of a witch hunt in camp and she’d likely have gotten a breveted rank in the guild...

 

Because of her destiny step being done, Anna got an aspect increase (I suggested mental due to her talking her way out of it, but I didn’t limit her strictly). I let her choose centering, convince and notice as her skills due to her ability to spot everything I did and talk her way out of a bloodbath.

 

Illinois got a choice of flexible weapons, evasion and centering due to his combat performance, while Felix picked from centering, enchanting and intimidate (both of those for distressing the skinwalkers with an ice axe).

 

Everyone got centering for facing someone who was trying to get them to break and not doing so, as well as resisting a spell to the face. They also each got 1xp, no bonuses this week as it was a short session.

 

I challenged myself a bit with this one, and I think I learned a few bits about FMing from it. Once again I was trying to give the party freedom to choose how they dealt with things (hopefully they agree, I’m trying to avoid anything where they feel they’re told ‘do X or fail’). I also had options for what the reward was depending on the actions and results – Intel or Guild rank in this case. I’ll be being careful to make sure that spy network is as useful as the more physical rewards such as Felix’s magic.

 

 

 

Plot Summary:

-Fought off an attack from the forests

-Anna made a bargain with some skinwalkers so they'll spy for her

-Everyone is getting rather suspicious of the Russian team I think...

 

.